Squirrel Trouble

Origins: While even a cursory study of criminal behavior will uncover instances of animals having been employed as weapons (e.g., snakes used in holdups), in

a couple of unusual cases not only have squirrels been wielded by the ill-intentioned, but the critters were frozen ones at that.

In 1994 in Lorain, Ohio, frozen squirrels were listed among the tools of trade used by two men and a teenager in their attempts to steal tire rims from a parked car. The trio would fling said frosted rodents at barking dogs to distract the canines from raising the alarm as they worked.

In 1991, frozen squirrels were used to bludgeon a woman in Sacramento, California. Kao Khae Saephan, an immigrant from Laos, repeatedly struck his wife with six frozen squirrels he retrieved from the family freezer, rendering the poor woman unconscious. (As to why the couple had these rodents in their freezer, it's because squirrel meat is a component of some Laotian dishes.) The irate husband was jailed on suspicion of spousal abuse, and Mrs. Saephan filed for divorce.

Iced squirrels, by the way, are a menace even when not being used in criminal endeavors. In 2005, British insurance company Norwich Union paid off on a claim for damage done to a vehicle by a frozen squirrel that had fallen from a tree — the iced rodent crashed through the windshield and landed on the passenger seat.